George Pérez is perhaps best known for his work as an artist on Marvel?s Avengers and DC?s Justice League of America and New Teen Titans and writer/artist on DC?s Wonder Woman. This month, he relaunches his creator-owned title, Crimson Plague, under the Gorilla imprint at Image. Worlds of Westfield Content Editor Roger Ash recently spoke with Pérez about Crimson Plague.

Westfield: What can you tell us about Crimson Plague?

George Pérez: Crimson Plague, which was originally launched in 1997 under the Event banner, is being relaunched under the Gorilla banner. Its still going to be a limited series although how many issues Im still not quite sure. The storys gotten a little out of hand. Its a finite series. How finite, youll find out probably about the same time I do [laughs]. It deals with a genetically altered young woman whose blood is toxic and corrosive to the touch. The thing that makes this a little different from the usual fare is that when she reaches her menstrual cycle, that toxicity becomes an airborne virus capable of destroying an entire planet in the course of a day. Thats the plague. One of the problems is, shes getting closer and closer to earth. Why is she getting closer to earth? I dont want to tip my hand, but when the people of earth find out, and they find out about the plague, thats the last place they want her to be. In the story, the characters only 5 actual years old. She had grown to full adult size in 5 years and so her cycle has yet to be measured; they dont know what frequency it is. Theres no way of finding out until its too late. From there on, things get a little hairy.

Westfield: As you mentioned, Crimson Plague was started before and then stopped. What happened?

Pérez: In the case of the original launch, one of the biggest problems was at that time I wasnt really doing that much mainstream work which also meant that I wasnt earning that much income. I was doing Crimson Plague, even before Event came into the picture, solely without pay. There was no upfront monies. So the amount of money I ended up using on it was too large to bear and unfortunately, because of the fact that it was always back end money, I couldnt give up paying work to do it. The second issue wasnt even 1/3 done when the first issue came out. At that time it was scheduled originally to be a monthly, then bi-monthly, and then a quarterly. I couldnt afford to do it.

The actual launching of the first issue would have been held back, if it had come out at all, if it werent for the fact that the premiere issue was tied into a charity event and I couldnt screw the charity. So I decided to take my lumps and let the first issue come out knowing full well I was going to be in trouble with the second issue. I couldnt let the Firefighters Burned Childrens Fund suffer because of my bad planning. On the good side, I managed to raise over $3500 for the Burned Childrens Fund because of that first issue. It served a purpose. Even though a second issue had been completed, by that point it had gotten so late, and in order to survive I had to start taking on regular assignments, including eventually the Avengers, that Crimson Plague did not become a priority book anymore because I had to get myself out of a financial quagmire. Thankfully, because both of the success of the Avengers and the fact that under Gorilla I am being paid money in advance of royalties, so I am getting paid a page rate on Crimson Plague, I can actually afford to do it again. And hopefully because of my higher profile in the industry again because of the Avengers, it will do better than it did the first time. It didnt do badly for a premiere issue of a book at that time.

Westfield: How did you get connected with Gorilla?

Pérez: I received a phone call from Kurt Busiek telling me that he wanted to put together a collection of partners for a new comics company. This was before the name Gorilla was agreed upon. They tried to get as many big, heavyweight names as they could at that time. There were a lot of people who probably had as big or a bigger name than I did, but one of the advantages I had was that I was not affiliated with any other company yet. Most others had already gone to their creator-owned lines at one point or another. Despite a 25 1/2 year career, I was still virgin territory. I was very flattered, but my biggest problem was that Im on exclusive contract with Marvel which meant I couldnt do anything new for Gorilla. But, my contract with Crimson Plague preceded my contract with Marvel and there was a specific waiver in my Marvel contract regarding Crimson Plague. So I went to Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti and asked if it was possible to get out of the Event contract so that I could use Crimson Plague as my Gorilla launch book. They werent happy about losing the title, but they were very understanding about it and I thank them for doing that. From that point on, Crimson Plague became the title that would allow me to be there when Gorilla launched its first series of books.

Westfield: One of the interesting things about Crimson Plague is that youre using real people as the models for the characters. How did that come about?

Pérez: Before I was going to start Crimson Plague, I was actually planning to do another series that was going to be called The Gladiator, or George Pérezs Gladiator as my lawyer told me because Gladiator is not an uncommon name. Originally, the character who was going to be called Plague until I found out that that name was already used, was going to be a villainess in the , I asked if I could use her as the model for the character, even so far as using her name. We kept talking about her character more and more, and the more I got into it, particularly when the aspect of feminine cycles came into it, the character became much more interesting than the Gladiator. So I asked her if she would be bothered if I scrapped the ideas for Gladiator and centered the series around her. Strangely enough she said yes [laughs].

Because I was using her, I found a small role for her husband, who had a totally different role than he would get later on. I think it finally came together when I went to a dance party at a studio my wife was taking classes in and saw another lovely young lady named Shannon Lower and talked to her. I found out she was fascinated with the idea of being a comic book character, so thus she became the main adversary for Dinas character. I found that so many people were enthralled by the idea that I thought, this is a great gimmick. And everyone said, I can buy multiple copies for my family. It would be a stupid thing not to act upon [laughs]. At final count, Ive closed the casting for Crimson Plague despite still getting people sending me photos, the cast of Crimson Plague is 240 people. Hopefully they have at least 5 family members each, and also knowing that half a dozen to ten of the people own comic book shops, this could really, really help the sales of Crimson Plague [laughter]. And Ive gotten people from all walks of life, not only comic book fans. Theres an airline stewardess who just happened to be a stewardess on a flight when I was coming back from a convention in Texas; a man who moved in our furniture; our gardener; my dentist; all these people are becoming characters in Crimson Plague. A few are professional models, but for the most part, Ive got people from all walks of life and even some internationally. I do have at least 1 or 2 cast members from Britain, 2 from Spain, and 2 or 3 from France who all wanted to be members of this group.

Westfield: After being in the business for all this time, why did you finally decide to take the plunge with your own characters?

Pérez: Its actually something that Id been knocking about in my mind for quite a while. When Image was first being formed, they actually approached me during the founding of the company to come in with an original character. I could have been an Image founding father, but I had absolutely nothing that I thought I had ready. And despite coming up with Gladiator and then Crimson Plague, it was something that still took a few years until it really started to come together. I didnt want to just plunge into creator owned waters without having something really there. It takes a while in my convoluted mind to come up with a story that is interesting to me and that I know, beginning to end, whats going to happen as opposed to coming up with a concept and then figuring out where Im going to go with it. Ive had enough time to create a Pérez: With Crimson Plague and the Avengers, thats about as full as my plate can be. Im doing a couple of illustrations. Im doing Last Man Standing for issue 105 of Pérez: Because of , the next Gorilla book. Weve managed to put a 64-page package together thatll only be going for $2.95. That way, those people who did buy

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